Trump-Class Battleship Program To Cost $275 Billion With Lead Vessel Priced $23.4 Billion

The U.S Navy’s Trump-Class Battleship Program is estimated to cost a whopping $ 275 billion, with the lead ship in the class priced at $23.4 billion, according to the newly released Congressional Budget Office report.

The intention to build the nuclear-powered Trump-class battleships as a new class of massive surface combatants was announced in December 2025.

Once constructed, the 35,000-ton nuclear battleship would be the most heavily armed surface vessel the U.S Navy has ever built. It would possess unmatched defensive and offensive capabilities, including the most advanced weapons, missiles, lasers and rail guns.

The ship would be the largest surface combatant in the world and bigger than any ship ever in the U.S naval fleet since WWII.

It would be three and a half times bigger than the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer and over twice the size of the Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer.

According to sources, the Navy plans to build 15 such ships between 2028 and 2056, with the subsequent 14 costing $ 18 billion each.

If everything goes according to plan, the total tonnage by 2058 of the large surface combatants to be built would rise by 60%, which could pose a challenge if the resources and shipbuilding capacity do not increase proportionally.

This shift to larger combatants means that shipyards in the U.S would need to produce 12% more tonnage under the 2027 plan than under the 2025 version.

To keep up with the proposed plan, the Navy would need to build a warship about every other year right from 2028 to 2056 and also manufacture two DDG-51 destroyers per year.

In March 2025, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report that not enough warships were being built and that most are not being delivered on time, taking an additional two to three years.

Shelby S. Oakley, a director at GAO, said that rising costs and other unrealistic expectations, given the present resources and capabilities, led to further delays in naval shipbuilding programs and shipbuilders have been “effectively made to operate in a perpetual state of triage.”